Tempels and Mbiti countered colonial paganism with Christian categories

Evidence

As a defense against the Western colonial invention of tradition of Africa as pagan, Tempels and Mbiti interpret African philosophy using Christian and Hellenistic concepts. During one of the first philosophical meetings of Europeans and Africans, Tempels confined the African differences to the European-specific way of thinking, analyzing African philosophy and religions via Western concepts and categories. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 804

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Decolonial Thought and the politics of knowledge production — the very framework the reader is studying in Bantu philosophy.
• QUESTION: Whether interpreting African philosophy via Christian/Hellenistic concepts rescued or distorted it — central tension in the religionist-empiricist debate.